Reading the emails from Oxon county council and clinical commissioning group, I’m struck (again) by the astonishing arrogance of Sloven Health. I’d already heard that when they did their royal tour of Oxon to smooth over the ripples caused by LB’s death, the failed CQC inspections and Verita’s damning report, they came across appallingly. Gail Hanrahan describes one such meeting brilliantly.

I’ve only heard Sloven senior team members talk on the radio/TV news but it’s a throwback to past decades to hear people clearly lacking any understanding about learning disability talk nonsense about ‘the modern way’ and ‘false positives’.

This arrogance is also captured in the Oxon email exchanges about this tour. In one meeting they were apparently concerned that the focus on learning disability in “the north of our patch” was impacting on other services they deliver, and they appeared offended to be asked for a copy of their ‘detailed action plan’. The too big to fail monster clearly in action.

The letter KP wrote to us a month or so ago is another example of this. A letter steeped in ‘I’m absolutely right’ statements and worse. A document  that will surely become an exemplar in ‘How not to engage with families of patients who have died through  a dereliction of duty of care’ events in the future.

The story leaping out from the (hundreds of) pages of emails, reports, minutes from across the board, is that Sloven took over crap provision, did nothing to sort it and are pretty irked that the likes of the CQC and Monitor are now breathing down their necks.

Something is badly wrong when an NHS Trust demonstrates what we’ve seen and continue to see in last 15 months.  NHS provision should surely be about continually trying to enhance and improve care provided. What else does it exist to do? (Obviously we have views on this but here we’re talking about what they ought and are funded to do).

Meanwhile, Sloven merrily collect HSJ awards while the police continue their investigation into LB’s death.

I suspect part of this arrogance comes from having apparently unlimited funds to try to make ‘problems’ disappear. Unlimited funding to chuck at legal teams to outmanoeuvre the odd family who are able (in a beyond unequal playing field) to avoid being crushed in the early days and just about drag themselves to the finish line years later.

A barbaric, inhumane situation. Seemingly condoned by those who must have the power to stand up and say “This ain’t right.  It stops now,” and don’t.